


The Fear of the LORD is the Beginning of Wisdom

by westintotheblack



Category: The Handmaid's Tale (TV)
Genre: Gen, O Canada!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 21:22:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14941628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westintotheblack/pseuds/westintotheblack
Summary: "God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self control," Serena Joy reminds herself sternly. Gilead is the power and the love, and it is instilling fear-free self control unto its chosen.(takes place during ep 2-9, "Smart Power.")





	The Fear of the LORD is the Beginning of Wisdom

It is a different type of fear here. It is not the fear of being found wanting, wanting in the eyes of a God whose comfort seems nearly unknowable now or wanting in the eyes of a husband by whom God tests her.

(For he is so frail, how can God have chosen him, why has God chosen her to submit? She asks in the churning roil of her mind and her heart recoils in confusion and dismay at the ungovernable unruly unquiet in what should be a sea of certainty.)

The fear here is not everywhere. It germinates within her, a seed of confusion that blooms into a comprehending terror: It is hers alone, for she is afraid of the life she once took for granted. She is afraid of the resilience she sees here. She is afraid because she cannot unsee it, cannot unknow what _remains_ in this broken world.

(Gilead is defined by what does not remain, her roilsome mind whispers. And what has arisen to replace all that has been lost. We lost nothing that was not hateful in God's eyes, her heart tries to argue. And the words do not register on her mind because oh, there are words here, words on signs and walls, shop signs and street signs and t-shirt slogans, and Serena Joy's mind is greedily gulping them down, all those words wantonly available to _anyone_.)

Serena tamps down this new fear, this bright thread that somehow sharpens the shadows of the fears she carries within her, fears that are Gilead's truest children.

Her heart recoils.

"God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self control," she reminds herself sternly. Gilead is the power and the love, and it is instilling fear-free self control unto its chosen.

"Whoever fears has not been perfected in love."

Serena Joy rolls that one around. Love is not patient or kind, her heart howls. Love does require you to dishonor others. Love requires anger, else it isn't love. Love doesn't have to protect -- sometimes it strips away safety so that the beloved can be brought to perfect trust only in the lord.

And love is the greatest form of despair.

It is all so clear to Serena Joy now. The Lord has brought her to despair because her love for him. He is showing her that her fear of what she sees here is necessary. Her fear here is what will protect her from what is to come.

When Serena is handed the itinerary and it has no words, when she sees that her hosts are attempting to display their stupid tolerance for a plurality of cultures, her mind snipes: This is the same "tolerance" that both necessitated the formation of Gilead and made it entirely possible to happen. This is the tolerance that fails to understand how fragile respect for so-called human rights is, how theoretical those human rights really are in God's world.

Serena Joy understands: She is Gilead and she has brought it with her, wherever she goes. Be not afraid. The Lord her God is with her, wherever she goes.

  


**A/N:** The verses Serena Joy recalls are 2 Timothy 1:7, 1 John 4:18, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 and Joshua 1:9.

  
I wanted to write this because I was so struck by Serena Joy getting that itinerary which was nothing but pictures. Like, what an amazing slap in the face it would have been! How does she rationalize it?

And I thought, _well, she's not going to admit that she did this to herself_. Like many people who don't want to admit when they're wrong, she would _double the fuck down_ on her mindset because the best sunk-cost fallacies are rooted in self-loathing and delusion as a form of self-soothing. Hence the title of the story is taken from Psalm 111:10. Serena Joy thinks she's moving toward wisdom and wow, is she about to be mistaken. Repeatedly.

Also, this is hella unbeta'd.


End file.
